Development and Production of Non-evaporable Getter Coatings for MAX IV

MAX IV is presently under construction at Lund, Sweden, and the first beam for the production of synchrotron radiation is expected to circulate in 2016. The whole set of 3-GeV ring beam pipes is coated with Ti-Zr-V Non Evaporable Getter (NEG) thin film in order to fulfil the average pressure requirement of 1x10⁻⁹ mbar, despite the compact magnet layout and the large aspect ratio of the vacuum chambers. In this work, we present the optimisations of the coating process performed at CERN to coat different geometries and mechanical assembling used for the MAX IV vacuum chambers; the morphology of the thin films is analysed by Scanning Electron Microscopy; the composition and thickness is measured by Energy Dispersive X-ray analysis; the activation of the NEG thin film is monitored by X-ray Photoemission Spectroscopy; the vacuum performance of the coated beam pipes is evaluated by the measurement of hydrogen sticking coefficient. The results of the coating production characterisation for the 84 units coated at CERN are presented.